Jump to full article: Everett (WA) Herald, 2008-04-21
Author: Krista J. Kapralos, Herald Writer
Intro: Stormmy Paul's home clings to the eastern edge of the Tulalip Indian Reservation. Smoke from his weekly campfire drifts over the reservation's border with Marysville, across the imaginary place on the road where drivers suddenly realize they've left one world for another.
On Wednesday afternoons, Stormmy, a Tulalip Indian, piles black lava rocks in the center of a fire pit . . .
Stormmy, who smuggled millions of knock-off Marlboro and Newport cigarettes into the U.S. and sold them tax-free from Indian smokeshops.
Stormmy, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy for leading, from his Tulalip home, a cigarette smuggling and money-laundering operation that led from Paraguay to China to Arlington.
Stormmy says he's lived as an Indian should his entire life, even when he was peddling tax-free smokes.
Especially then.
He admits everything, but insists he did nothing wrong. . . .
In June 2004, armed federal agents forced him onto the floor of his living room and made him wait there while they tore through his home. His father, nearing 70, a Tulalip Indian suffering from lung cancer, and his mother, who is white, could only watch helplessly as police jerked their son's arms behind him and cuffed his wrists together.
. . .
The Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act in 2003 tightened the threshold for federal smuggling charges to 50 untaxed cartons -- 10,000 cigarettes -- from 300 cartons. . . .
Then his mind changed again last year. That's when Harry Smiskin, a Yakama Nation member, won a cigarette smuggling case. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Yakama Nation members are able to "transport goods to market without restriction," as is stated in the 1855 Yakama Treaty.
That means Yakama Indians can move untaxed cigarettes between Indian reservations without fear of federal agents seizing them
The Treaty of Point Elliott, which covers the Tulalip Tribes, does not include any phrases regarding the Indians' freedom to transport goods, but Browne told Stormmy that the Yakama ruling might be enough to overturn his conviction.
Then Stormmy changed his mind again, after seeing how his father hobbled through the house, desperate to catch his breath. He told Browne to go through with his guilty plea, so his family wouldn't be put through a long trial.
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